09/16/2015
College of Engineering Speaker Series TOMORROW!
SEPT 16, 2015
Reception: 5 pm, Nedderman Hall Atrium
Lecture: 6 pm, Nedderman Hall Room 100
Dr. Missy Cummings, Duke University
Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Director of the Humans and Autonomy Laboratory
One of the Navy’s First Women Fighter Pilots
“Man vs. Machine or Man + Machine?”
With the explosion of automated technology, the need for humans as supervisors of complex automatic control systems has replaced the need for humans in direct manual control. A consequence of complex, highly automated domains in which the human decision-maker is more on-the-loop than in-the-loop is that the level of required cognition has moved from that of well-rehearsed skill ex*****on and rule following to higher, more abstract levels of knowledge synthesis, judgment, and reasoning. This talk will discuss where we are in terms of the state of automation and autonomy in our everyday lives, what the future holds, and how to conceptualize the balance between humans and robots.
Mary (Missy) Cummings received her B.S. in Mathematics from the US Naval Academy in 1988, her M.S. in Space Systems Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in 1994, and her Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia
in 2004. A naval officer and military pilot from 1988-1999, she was one of the Navy’s first female fighter pilots, and one of the first females to pilot an F-18 fighter. She detailed her experiences in this role in her book, “Hornet’s Nest.” She appeared on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” in January 2013 to discuss the NOVA program, “The Rise of the Drones.”
She is currently an associate professor in the Duke University Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, the Duke Institute of Brain Sciences, and is the director of the Humans and Autonomy Laboratory. Her research interests include human-unmanned vehicle interaction, human-autonomous system collaboration, human-systems engineering, public policy implications of unmanned vehicles, and the ethical and social impact of technology.
